Bust of Homer in the British Museum

Homer  is the name given to the supposed author of the early Greek poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. It is now generally believed that they were composed by illiterate aoidoi (rhapsodes) in an oral tradition in the 8th or 7th century BC, but it is a matter of debate among scholars whether a single aoidos is largely responsible for the poems as they stand. The name Homer is nevertheless often used, as a convention, by those who do not believe in singular authorship of the Homeric poems. Homer's works begin the Western Canon and are universally praised as brilliant and influential. By convention, their composition is also often taken to initiate the period of Classical Antiquity.